On this episode:
Selecting Roquan Smith with the eighth pick of the first round was an absolute no-brainer for Ryan Pace. Taking my favorite player in the draft? Icing on the cake.
What did others have to say about the pick? It’s being universally praised. Two things I have heard from a source inside the Bears.
(1) The team was genuinely surprised Roquan became available. There was an assumption by Pace & Co. that Smith wasn’t going to make it by Indianapolis and the team had begun zeroing in on playmaking DB Minkah Fitzpatrick.
(2) Last three first round picks? Georgia. North Carolina. Georgia. The Bears lean heavily on their southeastern scouts and we should all take note.
“I know Vic and his staff will maximize this player, and that’s what’s exciting about it,” Pace said after the first round concluded. “Vic’s been around a lot of good linebacker play, and this just adds to the great linebacker play the Bears have had as well.”
Pace called Fangio’s input “very important” on Smith.
“This is obviously one of Vic’s top players, [and] one of Matt’s top players, my top player,” Pace said. “We might have 10, 12, 15 grades on a guy, and it’s so comforting for me when I can look at that bandwidth of grades and they’re all right next to each other.
“That’s definitely how Roquan was, so it makes the pick really easy when we’re all unified like that.”
Smith fits Fangio’s mold for inside linebackers. At 6-1, 236 pounds, he’s built similarly to former 49ers star Patrick Willis (6-1, 240). And that’s just the start.
Smith’s instincts, range, speed and tenacity, and his take-charge demeanor off the field, also fuel comparisons to Willis, who was a tone-setting, five-time All-Pro in the middle of Fangio’s elite 49ers defenses. Pace said the Smith has “outstanding intangibles.”
On this week’s episode of DaBearsPod:
• Scott Wright of NFLDraftCountdown.com on (a) why this is not the ideal draft class for the Bears to rebuild at the receiver and edge rusher positions. (b) why he thinks the league may be sleeping on LSU wideout DJ Chark, who he compares (hesitantly) to Michael Thomas. (c) Texas OT Connor Williams possibly falling this week. (d) Quenton Nelson and what will be a hotly-debated QB class. (e) Much, much more…
•Reverend Dave wakes up in the middle of the night and mumbles his sermon into a microphone like Bukowski. It has to be heard to be believed. It’s his masterpiece.
•Prokofiev! Music!
Administrative Note: I’m doing one of those AMAs over at Reddit tonight at 6 pm CT. I don’t quite know how it all works so please stay tuned to DBB’s Twitter handle (on the right rail here at all times) for updated information. I have never been on Reddit or looked at one of these AMAs so I have no idea what to expect. But they asked so why the hell not?
We’ll be moving on to roster stuff and free agency soon enough but I wanted to put a punctuation mark on the coaching staff sentence after making a few phone calls and piecing things together.
From @DraftCountdown Quenton Nelson interview re: Harry Hiestand. pic.twitter.com/XiEeMkhHVH
— DaBearsBlog (@dabearsblog) January 17, 2018
On this Senior Bowl Week edition of the Weekend Show:
Scott Wright spends every day of his year on the NFL Draft do I turn to him for the information I lack time and interest to gather on my own. On the pod we discuss:
Normally we don’t talk draft around here until the month before the event itself but I’m growing weary of debating players with fans who don’t watch any of the actual football games played by the prospects. On the call, our pal Scott Wright breaks down possibilities for the Bears at safety, corner, edge rusher, linebacker, right tackle and kick return/scat back. He absolutely adores Landon Collins of Alabama (and he should). Other than Collins, a few names I think make sense at various points in the draft:
Hopefully you can use this podcast with Scott as something of a guide for watching the college games over the rest of this season.
Why I love starting my draft focus with the Scott Wright conversation (to hear the entire conversation, scroll down or CLICK HERE) is he tends to send me down some paths I otherwise would have ignored.
About midway through our chat I asked Scott a question he hadn’t been asked in his rounds of interviews. I wanted him to give me “an Emery reach” – a player with remarkable physical tools, at a Bears need position, who’d be considered a value 10-15 picks later. He paused, thought a bit and gave me Washington State safety Deone Buccanon.
Here is a well-written scouting report Ricky Henne at Chargers.com:
Another fantastic conversation with Scott Wright, who did a fine job getting me excited for next week. Topics discussed:
…and I need your questions. Scott is my favorite “draft guru” out there and he’s been gracious enough, for the second straight year, to grant me a half hour of his time during the busiest two-week period of his calendar. So submit questions you’d like me to ask him in the comments section below. I’ll take a half dozen of the best ones and ask them directly to Scott.
One note. To separate your questions from the general conversation below, type the word QUESTION (in the caps) at the start of the question. This way I can get through the comments quickly.
Thanks in advance.
